Python CGI - Presenting a zip file to user

[Justin Ezequiel]

On Jan 3, 7:50 am, jwwest <jww... at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I'm working on a cgi script that zips up files and presents the zip
> file to the user for download. It works fine except for the fact that
> I have to overwrite the file using the same filename because I'm
> unable to delete it after it's downloaded. The reason for this is
> because after sending "Location: urlofzipfile" the script stops
> processing and I can't call a file operation to delete the file. Thus
> I constantly have a tmp.zip file which contains the previously
> requested files.
>
> Can anyone think of a way around this? Is there a better way to create
> the zip file and present it for download "on-the-fly" than editing the
> Location header? I thought about using Content-Type, but was unable to
> think of a way to stream the file out.
>
> Any help is appreciated, much thanks!
>
> - James

import sys, cgi, zipfile, os
from StringIO import StringIO

try: # Windows only
    import msvcrt
    msvcrt.setmode(sys.stdout.fileno(), os.O_BINARY)
except ImportError: pass

HEADERS = '\r\n'.join(
    [
        "Content-type: %s;",
        "Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=%s",
        "Content-Title: %s",
        "Content-Length: %i",
        "\r\n", # empty line to end headers
        ]
    )

if __name__ == '__main__':
    os.chdir(r'C:\Documents and Settings\Justin Ezequiel\Desktop')
    files = [
        '4412_ADS_or_SQL_Server.pdf',
        'Script1.py',
        'html_files.zip',
        'New2.html',
        ]
    b = StringIO()
    z = zipfile.ZipFile(b, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
    for n in files:
        z.write(n, n)

    z.close()

    length = b.tell()
    b.seek(0)
    sys.stdout.write(
        HEADERS % ('application/zip', 'test.zip', 'test.zip', length)
        )
    sys.stdout.write(b.read())
    b.close()